One man's 'arse' is another man's 'ass': taboo words and profanities

Let's face it: profanities and taboo words are sometimes appropriate (and maybe even fun) to use. But does the same level of use apply to politicians or others constantly in the media spotlight?

On this week's edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller discusses the convention of taboo words and profanities in everyday language with Professor Anne Curzan, specifically in response to John Boehner's recent remarks about the Senate.

Quote from Boehner:

"We have moved the bill in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill, before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."

The word "ass" is usually not spoken in front of the public eye; it's taboo. Following Boehner's statement, however, this word is coming out of the woodwork, as Anne Curzan describes.

"...you could sense that people were interested in what Boehner said, but also in how he said it. They were interested in that word."

Is it more acceptable than other profanities used by past politicians?

"When Vice President Joe Biden, and Vice President Dick Cheney both dropped 'f-bombs' in fairly public places, everybody referred to it as the 'f-word.' Nobody wanted to say the word, because that's a taboo word that we don't say," explains Curzan.

But why is "ass" more acceptable than, say the "f-bomb?" Anne Curzan clears this up.

"The word that Boehner used shows up in the 19th Century, and most dictionaries call it 'vulgar slang'. It's an adaptation from 'arse,' which goes all the way back to Old English, and which most people see as not a taboo word. And interestingly, the word 'ass' when it refers to an animal, not taboo at all."

"To me, it speaks to the power of language that we have these words that are so powerful that we worry about whether we say them, we worry about whether other people are saying them. Dictionaries are in this difficult position of 'how do we label these to show that they're vulgar or offensive?' so that people know that these words are loaded," said Curzan

However, despite the historical context, or the taboo nature of these words some of us really like to use profanities when they're called for. But how does one draw the line of when it is and isn't okay to use a profanity?

"It's important to realize that taboo language actually does some really important work," says Curzan. "It expresses anger, it also can be incredibly funny. It has the power to offend, it also has the power to express a kind of closeness. And interestingly, it allows us to alleviate pain; studies show that we can endure more pain if we're allowed to curse," Curzan said.

Moral of the story? Curse if you want to; it expresses anger and emotion when used in the right context.

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With the amount of words used everyday for description and communication, it's difficult to believe that there are holes in our vocabulary where certain real events, actions or items cannot be described. On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller discusses these "lexical gaps" with Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan.

"It [lexical gap] is a space in the lexicon, in the vocabulary, where we don't have one word to describe something. So, for example, we don't have one word in English to talk about 'spicy-hot.' If you say 'The dish is hot,' people will say, 'Is it spicy-hot, or hot-hot, or temperature-hot?' Because 'hot' is ambiguous, we don't have a word that differentiates," says Curzan.

Other such lexical gaps which cause confusion in every day language include the ambiguity behind what to call the first decade of the 21st century, or a male-lover. Sometimes, the only way to overcome this gap is to create a "sniglet," as Anne Curzan explains.

"Rich Hall, who was a comedian on HBO's Not Necessarily the News, came up with the word 'sniglet,' which was a word that should be a word, and should be in the dictionary. And he came up with lots of 'sniglets' including 'musquirt,' which is the liquid in the mustard bottle that comes out before the mustard does."

On this week's "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller speaks with Professor Anne Curzan from the University of Michigan about the "adorkable" slang of today's college students.

One can surmise the meaning of "adorkable" as a combination of "adorable" and "dork." Curzan says that this process of blending words to fill another undefined meaning is fairly common.

"It describes something that we didn't know we needed to describe until we had this word, and then suddenly it fills this need. This process of blending, where we take two words and "smush" them together, is pretty common in slang," says Curzan.

Suddenly with this process of blending, any action suddenly has a definitive word to go with it, as Curzan explains.

"This week, students taught me the word 'hangry' which they said is when you're so hungry that you get really cranky and angry."

We've all experienced it: we're out at a restaurant, or a grocery store, and after we're done with our meal or our shopping we give the clerk a cordial "thank you," only to receive a response of "no problem." On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller talks politeness conventions with Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan.

"'No problem' as a response to 'thank you' seems to start in the mid-twentieth century," explains Curzan.

"There are people who think that's rude...I think what we're seeing here is a change in politeness conventions, where people are trying to indicate that 'You weren't imposing on me, it was no problem.' Whereas if you say 'You're welcome,' there's actually an indication that 'It was an imposition, but I was happy to do it.'"

In addition to the evolvement of politeness conventions, there have also been developments in what host Rina Miller calls "the language of courtesy," such as introductions like "Pleased to meet you," and "How do you do?"

This week on “That’s What They Say” Michigan Radio’s Rina Miller and English Professor Anne Curzan discuss certain words that give people problems with pronunciation.

Everyone’s favorite word when being detailed, “persnickety” was originally spelled and pronounced “pernickety."

“'Pernickety’ goes back to 1808, and by 1892 we have evidence of speakers putting in the ‘s’ and saying ‘persnickety,’” says Curzan.

Other words that give people problems, such as “nuclear”, are usually mispronounced through analogy of other words that sound similar.

“Speakers are making ‘nuclear’ sound more like words such as ‘particular’, ‘circular’, ‘vascular’, ‘molecular’. We have a lot of those ‘cular’ words, not a lot of words that end with ‘clear,’” she says.